Mitterand's son guilty in arms scandal

PARIS - A former French Interior Minister and the son of the late President Francois Mitterrand were yesterday convicted of taking payments for the illegal sale of arms to Angola during the country's civil war in the 1990s.

The former minister, Charles Pasqua, an ally and later enemy of Jacques Chirac, was given a 12-month jail sentence for his part in smoothing the sale of an arsenal of arms to Luanda from countries in the former Soviet bloc.

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, the late President's son and special African envoy, was fined £339,000 ($752,000) and handed a two-year suspended sentence.

The two alleged ringleaders in the "Angolagate" affair - Moscow-based Israeli billionaire Arkady Gaydamak and French businessman Pierre Falcone - were both given six-year jail sentences.

Gaydamak was absent during the trial, and a warrant will be issued for his arrest.

Falcone had enjoyed partial diplomatic immunity as Angola's representative to Unesco, but the court ruled that this did not cover this conviction. He was jailed after yesterday's judgment.

Most of the convicted men are expected to appeal.

Gaydamak and Falcone do not deny the basic facts.

However, their lawyers insisted their activities between 1993 and 1998 were of no concern to the French legal system.

They had bought arms in Eastern Europe - including 420 tanks, 150,000 shells, 12 helicopters and six warships - and delivered them to Angola.

But they argued that the arms, worth $440,000, had never passed through France and were not covered by a French government ban on arms sales to both sides in the conflict between the Angolan government and the Unita rebel movement.

The court decided yesterday that the dealings had been conducted by Mr Falcone's Paris-based company and were therefore illegal.

Pasqua, 82, who was twice Interior Minister, and for many years a close associate of both former President Chirac and President Nicolas Sarkozy, was found guilty of taking payments in return for using his political influence to smooth the deals.

A former senior French state official and undercover agent, Jean-Charles Marchiani, was given a 15-month sentence for the same offence.

Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, was also found guilty of "trafficking in influence", and was given the suspended sentence.

Several defendants were cleared, including Jacques Attali, a former aide to Mitterrand and former president of the European Development Bank in London.

- INDEPENDENT